Pharma Startup Investigating LSD as Anxiety Treatment

Mind Medicine, a New York-based pharmaceutical startup that focuses on the potential medical application of psychedelics, announced it had partnered with the world-leading psychedelics pharmacology and clinical research laboratory headed by Professor Dr. Matthias Liechti at University Hospital Basel in Switzerland.

According to a company press release, MindMed — a publicly-traded company on the NEO exchange — is contemplating a new drug development program using hallucinogenic doses of LSD in the treatment of anxiety disorders.

The exclusive partnership will grant MindMed exclusive access to Dr. Liechti’s laboratory’s research. The company, however, said it is specifically interested in an ongoing placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial of high dose LSD as a potential treatment for anxiety.

“It’s a wonderful moment for our company to be recognized by Professor Dr. Liechti, the leading expert of LSD research in the world, as the right team to partner with in continuing our development of psychedelic inspired medicines,” MindMed Co-Founder & Co-CEO JR Rahn said in a press release.

“Over the past decade we have amassed the largest collection of clinical trials around LSD. We have been studying the pharmacology and potential medical uses of LSD and other psychedelics for many years in the laboratory, in patients, and in healthy volunteers.” — Dr. Matthias Liecthi of University Hospital Basel, in a statement

Dr. Liechti said MindMed is “the leading company with a similar mission to ours,” and that the collaboration will allow the lab to “greatly accelerate our groundbreaking research.”